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U.S. President Barack Obama (left) and British Prime Minister David Cameron observe a minute of silence on November 15, 2015 to remember the victims of terror attacks in Paris and Ankara at the start of a two-day G20 summit in Turkey | Ozan Kose/AFP via Getty Images

Barack Obama to David Cameron: we’re still friends

President frustrated at those who unwilling ‘to put any skin in the game.’

The White House has insisted U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron is “as close a partner” as the United States ever had, after Barack Obama attacked the prime minister in a magazine interview.

In a scathing assessment of his allies in The Atlantic’s April issue, Obama criticized his European counterparts for their handling of Libya, which he describes as “a mess.”

“Mess is the president’s diplomatic term; privately, he calls Libya a ‘shit show,’” the article states.

Obama said Cameron quickly became “distracted by a range of other things,” adding “I had more faith in the Europeans, given Libya’s proximity, being invested in the follow-up.”

The president describes his frustration at what he describes as “free riders,” nations who push the United States “to act but then showing an unwillingness to put any skin in the game.”

The article also reports that Obama recently warned the U.K. that it couldn’t claim a “special relationship” with Washington unless it committed to spend at least 2 percent of its GDP on defense. “You have to pay your fair share,” Obama reportedly told Cameron. The U.K. subsequently paid up, meeting the NATO defense spending target.

On Syria, Obama said “the failure of Cameron to obtain the consent of his parliament,” was also a factor in the U.S. president decision not to bomb the regime of Bashar al-Assad in 2013, after evidence emerged that Assad had crossed Obama’s red line by using chemical weapons. That decision angered allies such as France.

“By not intervening early, we have created a monster,” French Prime Minister Manuel Valls said in the same Atlantic article. “We were absolutely certain that the U.S. administration would say yes. Working with the Americans, we had already seen the targets. It was a great surprise. If we had bombed as was planned, I think things would be different today.”

Following publication of the interview, No. 10 Downing Street said there were “many difficult challenges” in Libya, but did not address Obama’s criticism of British defense spending.

The White House released an unsolicited statement to the BBC calling Cameron “as close a partner as the president has had.”

“We deeply value the U.K.’s contributions on our shared national security and foreign policy objectives,” the White House added.